Additionally the city of Sulaymaniyah, the second biggest in Iraqi Kurdistan, is close to the Iranian border and traditionally has good cultural and political relationships with its Persian neighbours. Many Iranians who came to work here, leaving their families behind, were not necessarily political activists, opposed to the regime in Tehran or seeking asylum – their primary aim is to earn money.
The influx of migrant workers into Iraqi Kurdistan over the past five to seven years has been well documented – labourers from Asia and Africa fed the region's building boom and a newly affluent class' need for cleaners, maids and cafe workers. Iranians of Kurdish ethnicity often had an advantage over many of the latter because they shared at least some of the culture and language.
“But it would still be better for us to work in our own country,” explains Bakhtiar Saidi, an Iranian working as a tattooist in the Iraqi city of Ranya in the mountainous area near the Iranian border. He says that most of the Iranians he knows would go back home if the economy improved. “Many of my relatives and friends work in the Kurdistan region but their lives are not easy and they don't always feel comfortable because of local security that is directed against Iranians here. They are pinning their hopes on the agreement between Iran and the P5 plus one,” he noted.
Nobody seems to know exactly how many Iranian Kurds are in Iraqi Kurdistan. The local Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in Iraqi Kurdistan has counted over 15,000 foreign workers entering the region since 2009 but they don't know exactly how many of these are Iranian. One reputable local journalist told a 2011 fact-finding mission by the Danish Immigration Service he thought there might be as many as 30,000 Iranian migrant workers in Iraqi Kurdistan, although some of these individuals may well have been brought into the area by Iranian companies and investors.
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